The Factual Murder

There are five people. One of them shot and killed one of the other five. Which man is the murderer?

1. Dan ran in the NY City marathon yesterday with one of the innocent men.
2. Mike considered being a farmer before he moved to the city.
3. Jeff is a topnotch computer consultant and wants to install Ben's new computer next week.
4. The murderer had his leg amputated last month.
5. Ben met Jack for the first time six months ago.
6. Jack has been in seclusion since the crime.
7. Dan used to drink heavily.
8. Ben and Jeff built their last computers together.
9. The murderer is Jack's brother. They grew up together in Seattle.

Hint

Answer

1. Jack is not the murderer, because he is the brother of the murderer. 2. Dan can't be the murderer since he ran a marathon, and the murderer recently had his leg amputated, and wouldn't be running a marathon of any magnitude that quickly. 3. Ben is not the murderer if he just met Jack, since Jack and the murderer grew up together. 4. This leaves Jeff and Mike. Since Jeff is still alive (he wants to install a new computer next week, present tense) he must be the murderer. Mike also didn't grow up with Jack. It has been determined that Jack, Dan and Jeff are all alive. Ben must also be alive since Jeff plans to install Ben's computer next week. This means that Jeff killed Mike.Hide

Gonna have to think about this one some more... I thought Jack's brother killed him, and was trying to eliminate who was NOT Jack's brother. I interpreted "Jack has been in seclusion since the murder" as potentially "he's dead; he's in a grave; therefore, he's in seclusion". And I'm not seeing how the murderer had to have grown up with Jack. Just because the murderer is Jack's brother doesn't mean they ALL grew up together. (I interpreted "they grew up together" as "Jack and his brother grew up together", since not all siblings grow up together). Will ponder it some more, if my son stops talking to me!!

I loved this teaser! I'm proud that I reached the answer. Oddly enough, that mysterious hint calmed me down a bit and made me look at what I had in front of me...which turned out to be enough information . Good one !

I figure that Ben met Jack for the first time and Ben & Jeff built their last computer together, then it had to be Jeff since he was not ever going to build computers again. He went to jail. Oh well! At least I was right who the murderer was

The fact that "Mike considered becoming a farmer before moving to the city" does not preclude him from having grown up with Jack in Seattle. Dan having run a marathon yesterday does not preclude him from having been shot, since we don't know when the murder took place.

Tighten those clues up and it's a very good quiz. Also, the instructions should ask "who is the murderer and who did he kill?", and say, "one of the other four", not "...other five".

I got it all wrong! But here's why:
Hint: Jack has been in seclusion since the crime.
My interpretation: Jack is dead.
Hint A: The murderer had his leg amputated last month.
Hint B: Mike considered being a farmer before he moved to the city.
My interpretation: Mike wanted to be a farmer, but ended up moving to the city to take on another profession because he had his leg amputated and didn't think he'd be up to doing all the farming work with only one leg.
I figured Mike killed Jack.

I got Jeff as the murderer. But the clues are too ambiguous. Once I realized that some of the clues aren't specific enough, I tried not reading too much into the clues.

Dan running yesterday, does not indicate that he is still alive. No clue is given as to the time of the shooting or the time of death.

My logic went more like this. Once I had eliminated Mike, Jack, and Ben from the list of suspects. That left me with Dan and Jeff. Since Jack and the murderer are brothers I assumed that Jack's parents named both of their boys with names that start with the letter J. It is unusual for this type of puzzle to use the same initial for the names of the people involved.

The way I see it, it cannot be deduced if Mike or Dan are alive or dead. As such, either of them could be the victim. That possibility also leaves both Mike and Jeff as potential murderers. So, you have the possibility of Jeff killing Mike or Dan, or of Mike killing Dan. There is nothing to indicate further which way it can go.

Correction to my last post - You can reasonably deduce that Jeff is the murderer since Mike moved to the city later whereas Jack and the murderer grew up in Seattle. But the victim still cannot be deduced.

Going with the simplest things, the clues fit together real nicely. I was easily able to determine who was who and it only took me a few minutes. Sometimes the key to logic is to not over-think things.

I arrived at the Jeff killed Mike conclusion, and didn't feel the clues were that difficult:

Jack is an instant rule out from the last clue. Easy.

If we assume yesterday was the last day of August and by "last month" being sometime in July . . . possibly the 1st, then the murderer only had 62 days at most in the calendar year to rehab from surgery, adjust to a new prosthetic leg, train, and run in a marathon. However, it's always held in the first Sunday of November, so the killer would have only 5 weeks to rehab train & run - not happening. Dan cannot be the killer.

Like the answer said, Ben met Jack for the first time six months ago, & the last clue says the murderer grew up with Jack. Ben may indeed be a long lost brother, but they only met for the FIRST time (not reunited) six months ago. He's not the killer.

Mike is not the killer, he moved to the city, he didn't grow up there.

Since the final rule out involves verb tense, we can also rule out Jack as the victim through the present tense of the killer IS Jack's brother (rather than saying Jack WAS the murderer's brother).

The final determination as to whether Dan & Mike are alive or not does depend on when the murder occured. If it occured 5 minutes ago, then Dan may have been the victim but reason would indicate at least a modicum of time has passed for Jeff to have been isolated, meaning the murder happened at some point before the marathon wrapped.

If the time of the murder would have been given, it would be all too simple. I liked the way this one played out.

Rockstar - Yes, it does all depend on when the murder occurred which is why you can't reasonably assume that Dan is still alive. He ran in the marathon 'yesterday', which leaves many hours - possibly even a full day after which he could have been murdered. Assuming the murder happened further back than that is no different or more reasonable than assuming Mike moved to the city yesterday and therefore is the one who lived. We don't have times for either event and making up times is illogical. Simply put, there are not enough facts to determine the victim.